These had been Sharron’s quarters, all right.
It was beginning to dawn on me how she operated. She lived here, but she lived alone. And while this apartment was nice enough, it was bizarre to think that the wealthy widow of E.J. Wesley existed in only three fairly small rooms in her own lavish mansion. This was how the help lived, at least they did if their rich boss wasn’t a bastard.
Nowhere in the well-appointed but relatively small apartment could I find evidence of male occupation, which wasn’t like her at all. None of those guys with their pictures on the baby grand had toothbrush and pajama privileges. Nor could I find any servant’s quarters. Whenever Mrs. Wesley gave a shindig, she must have imported a full staff of servants from the city to do the arranging and the cleaning up.
The guest list must have been a carefully selected bunch. If they weren’t, news of this joint most certainly would have found its way to county or state officials and there would have been hell to pay. Admittance then, would be by invitation only, a swell way to attract the suckers and snobs. Very hush hush or you were kicked out on your well-off fanny, maybe worse. If they did squawk, they’d only leave themselves open for a gambling charge.
Neat.
I opened a few drawers and poked around a bit, but there was nothing of unusual interest. After completing a tour of the rooms, I walked downstairs and around to the new kitchen to complete the circuit. I had my eyes open all the way and I know where to look, but I never found what I wanted.
In that whole damn house there wasn’t one sign of a safe.
I had looked in all the usual places and unusual, as well, behind pictures, under desks, checking for loose carpet. No safe.
If Sharron Wesley didn’t have one in the house, she must have buried it somewhere on the property. One thing was certain, money wasn’t being banked or stored where a check could be kept and income tax dragged out of it. An illegal den like this didn’t dare operate that way. There was the likelihood that she had a partner in the venture, and he hauled the dough back to the city. But the parties were probably Friday/Saturday affairs. And I doubted a bank run would happen daily, eighty miles out on Long Island like this. A Nassau County bank, perhaps, but that was still a drive. Any operation like this needed a safe for overnight purposes, at least, and I could not find one.
It was past eight-thirty and I still had to see Poochie-a guy like him could be in the rack already. Living as close to the Wesley mansion as he did, it was highly probable that he had witnessed plenty of the goings-on out here that the townspeople didn’t know about… and I wanted to see him before the cops tried to question him again, in the wake of Sharron Wesley’s Godiva act.
Now that they had something besides a disappearance to go on, the Sidon PD had a legitimate reason to drag Poochie in to answer a few questions, and knowing their interrogation techniques, I wanted the little guy left strictly alone.
I went out a side door. The same flagstone path that I had seen from the shore took me past the gazebo to the beach and I hit the sand for the walk to the shack.
In the moonlight, the little structure was just a dark blot on the beach. No light was on. The water lapped softly on the sand, and at regular intervals the hooting of some night bird broke the oppressive stillness. Overhead the moon skidded behind a cloud, but a few stars winked off and on like a street sign.
When I was still fifty feet away, an ominous snarling came from Poochie’s hut, then a higher-pitched growl, almost trying for harmony. His cats. They lived outside the shack, huddled like feline watchdogs. They spit repeatedly at the night, then a lantern flared up within the hovel and there was a banging as the occupant shut his door. Then the metal clank of a bolt shot into place.
“It’s me, Poochie,” I called out as I approached. “It’s Mike!”
No answer. I went up to the door and knocked.
“Who… who is it?” His voice was high and frightened. He lacked the confidence of his cats.
I was about to respond when a furry body flung itself at my legs and nails ripped through my pant leg into the flesh. I let out a curse and detached the cat from my leg and yelled, “ Ow! ”
The bolt went back and the handmade door opened. “Mike! Gee, I thought it was you, but I wasn’t sure. Here, let me take the naughty kitty cats off your hands.”
“They’re not on my hands, pal, they’re on my legs!”
Poochie bent down and took one animal from around my feet and called for the other. When he spoke to the creatures, telling them I was a guest and to be nice, their tails went down and they treated me like an old friend, rubbing against my legs and purring. That was well and good, but my trousers were still ripped.
Poochie had the remnants of a bathrobe flung over his shoulders and one hand held his pants up. The table was still littered with shell carvings and the remains of a fish supper. He brought the lamp over and set it on the table.
He bit his lower lip, and looked at me like a scared child. “The cops, Mike? Will they come back?”
“They might.”
“Oh, Mike. Why do they wanna hit me all the time for? Don’t let ’em drag me down that alley again, please…”
“They won’t. Don’t worry.” I tried to be reassuring, even if I knew he really did still have those bastards to contend with. I would do my best to protect him, and intimidate them into leaving him alone, but he remained at risk.
“Gee, Mike, that’s swell to hear. You’re good to me. You’re the only guy around here that is. Just one other guy that ever does nice things for me, you know who?”
“No, who?”
“Big Steve. He gives me meat for my cats. Plenty of meat.”
“Big Steve is all right.”
“Oh, you know Big Steve!” Poochie grinned. “He says they’re leftovers, but they ain’t, and he gives me so much food, the cats won’t eat it all and I end up eating most of it. I like Big Steve, too… but not as much as I like you, Mike.”
The over-age kid was so damn frank he made me sweat.
“How long you lived around here, Poochie?”
“Gosh, Mike, a long time.”
“Yeah, but how long?”
He looked pained and squirmed in his seat. Twice he squinted at me, but said nothing.
“Can’t you remember?” I asked him.
He shook his head sadly. “I can’t hardly remember nothing sometimes. Only when my head hurts do I remember things. Mike, what’s the matter with my head? I heard a man say once I was crazy. Am I crazy? The guy that sells bait on the barge is crazy, but I ain’t like him. He spits on himself and don’t even know where he lives sometimes, but I ain’t that bad. I just can’t remember things hardly. Only when my head hurts.”
“When your head hurts, what do you remember?”
He shrugged and gave me a tight grin as though he thought the idea of it was pretty funny himself. “I dunno. I just remember stuff… when my head hurts.”
“You remember your name? Not ‘Poochie,’ but your real name?”
“Uh-huh. Stanley Cootz. Stanley Cootz. Stanley Cootz. I say it over and over, ’cause I can’t always remember it. You asked me fast-like, and I told you. I ain’t crazy, am I, Mike?”
“Naw, any guy that tells you that is nuts himself. Lots of people can’t remember things. Hell, sometimes I have nights where the next day I can’t remember a goddamn thing.”
“You shouldn’t say bad words, Mike.”
“I know I shouldn’t, Pooch. I’m sorry. Tell me something. You don’t need your head to hurt to remember that lady with the yellow hair, do you?”
“Oh, no! I remember her all right. That wasn’t long enough ago not to remember. I didn’t like her. She was not a nice lady and-”
“She’s dead, Poochie,” I cut in.
He stopped short and his head jerked around. “Dead?” It was like the word had no meaning to him.
I nodded. “Somebody killed her. Murdered her.”
“Murder…”
